


The Takedown

by JaqofSpades



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-14 08:26:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4557630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie Matheson set her heart on MMA glory years ago, but now that she's finally turned 21, her uncle - and trainer - has decided he doesn't want her fighting competition.  Lucky for Charlie, there's another big fight gym in town, and its owner is every bit as legendary as her uncle. And she's hoping the fact that Miles and Monroe hate each other’s guts will actually work in her favour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iwilltry_tocarryon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwilltry_tocarryon/gifts).



> A happy, very belated birthday to Kayla, who creates beautiful art as well as writes wonderful stories, and is so much my partner in crime that I had to make her pick her own birthday fic from a list of ideas. Sorry this has taken so long!

_REVOLUTION | AU | Fight Club by lightgamble_

_***_

“No, kid. End of discussion,” her bastard of an uncle roared, then walked out on her, slamming the office door as he plunged back into the testosterone temple beyond. Charlie blinked, stunned, not ready to believe he’d killed her hopes and dreams, just like that.

“I trained you to keep you safe, not to beat up on other girls,” he’d said, and sure, that was how it started. But she was good – everyone said so, including Miles – and she’d practically grown up here, training three nights a week since she was ten goddamn years old. For nothing, apparently.

Miles didn’t want her fighting competition, and refused to train her anymore.

And without a trainer, without a gym … she was out.

Unless …

No. She couldn’t. He wouldn’t anyway. From what she’s heard, he’s as much of a misogynist dinosaur as Miles.

But he had a gym. And was just as legendary as her uncle. And the fact that they hated each other’s guts might actually work in her favour.

Time to pay a visit to Monroe.

*

He notices her the minute she steps inside the double doors of the gym. She’s no aerobicised princess – her face is bare of makeup and she’s wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants rather than lycra – but the gentle curves of her body still grab more attention than she is clearly comfortable with. Bass rolls his eyes and jogs down to the lower level before the boys get too rowdy – he was already taking enough heat from the yoga studio next door about the way some of his kids had been eyeing off the yoga chicks.

Neville, he notes with a grimace, has already abandoned his punching bag to help the interloper. He shoulders his way around the young Marine, sending him back to the bag with a jerk of his head. The kid has potential, but he’s like a puppy holding kittens when a good looking woman walks by. And up close, this one is more than just good looking.

Bass has to force himself not to react when she turns her face up to him. Her eyes punch straight through him, twin pools of the pure blue framed by fierce cheekbones and the most sensuous mouth he’s ever seen. His cock twitches in his pants just looking at that mouth, and it makes him rude. “Yoga’s next door, sweetheart. This is a fight gym,” he says shortly, taking her elbow to steer her out.

She braces, refusing to be moved, and frowns up into his face. He’s not prepared for her voice, a husky alto that takes him from interested to rock hard within seconds.

“Just as well I came looking for a fight then, isn’t it,” she offers, nailing him with a sarcastic little smirk that bites like a knife between the ribs. “This is Monroe’s right?”

He nods, brain scrabbling desperately. Too young to be a cop. Too beautiful to be from the IRS. A reporter, maybe? Or – fuck – did one of his boys knock her up?

“I need a trainer. And I heard you were the best.”

She’s a freaking _fighter_?

Monroe misses the next few words out of her mouth – and if she’s looking for a trainer he’s gonna have to forget all about that mouth – but manages to catch the end of her explanation. It’s not like he’s in the business of turning down paying customers anyway, but the minute she says Miles Matheson, well.

He’s not a big fan of women in the ring if he’s honest, but he’s already got a couple of girls on his books who know how to take a hit, and if that’s what they want, what they’re prepared to pay good money for, then who is he to turn them down? And if just so happens to send a big fuck you to the asshole he used to call his best friend? So much the better.

“Guess you better come in then, kid. What should I call you?”

Her eyes slide over him with a sly heat that sets off a million alarm bells. Her smile, however, is cool.

“Anything but kid,” she says brusquely and bends to sling her workout bag over her shoulder before swinging her way into the gym ahead of him. “You need me to change?”

“You wanna start tonight?”

She turned back with fire in her eyes.

“Well, if I’ve got a trainer and a gym, that means I’ve got a fight four weeks from today. Gotta make every minute count.”

_He’s got the bottle of Jack and Miles has the Cuervo as they shamble their way back to the hotel room, giggling like kids. “Gotta make every minute count!” Miles slurs, and yeah, it’s their fucking mantra, so he answers “could be dead tomorrow,” like he always does, and takes another swig. They ship out tomorrow – or is it today? – and this is what they do, between deployments, they make it count._

Bass swallows, and tells himself to settle the fuck down. Wasn’t like he was going to be hearing every one of Miles’ shitty little sayings - how long could she have worked with him anyway? Why train her at all if he wasn’t going to let her fight?

He eyes the ridiculous lushness of the girl’s ass, then dismisses that idea. He can’t see Miles training a girl just because he wants to bang her. Even he’s not that stupid, and Miles had always been the one who was ice-cold about that sort of thing. Liked to keep everything separate in his head, he would say. Plus, she was kinda young.

“You even 21?”

She nods her head and he should probably check her ID to be sure, but her eyes are glued to McCallum and Diaz sparring in the centre ring, head nodding every time someone lands a decent kick or punch. She tenses minutes before the takedown, and obviously picking up on Diaz’s strategy, and holds her breath as he trips into the well-oiled sequence. McCallum should know how to block him – he’s learnt the same moves – but he doesn’t have the sort of instincts Diaz does, which is why he’ll always lose in the ring with the smaller, faster man.

And she can see that, Monroe realises. She knows her stuff, he concedes. She’s the real deal.

“Need a name if I’m gonna register you, kid.”

She doesn’t even take her eyes off them to answer him. “Charlie Porter. Turned 21 last week. But Miles, the prick, refused to let me fight.”

Bass raises a brow at her use of his old sparring partner’s first name, then dismisses it. Who knew what the fuck went on in Miles’ gym these days, with Rachel in the mix.   She’d surgically removed his balls more than two decades ago, and now he’d obviously handed her his ability to pick a good fighter as well as any business sense he had left.

This kid had winner written all over her, and Bass hasn’t even seen her throw a punch yet.

Something tells him it’s going to be goddamn beautiful, and he prays she can’t hear the lust thick in his voice as he tells her to wrap her fists and hit the mat.

*

 _Hands up. Eyes up. Chin down._ “Hit ‘em before they hit you,” Charlie grunts out the punchline, and punctuates it with jab designed to crush the man’s cheekbone.  It’d be a shame to mark something so perfect, some girly part of her moans, and – bam! - she shuts that bitch down with a follow up right to his annoyingly perfect nose.

Neither punch connects, of course, because he’s quicker than anyone she’s ever _seen_. She thought Miles was fast but this guy … he flows like silk, his entire body roped into the dance. He lifts his chin a fraction and she overbalances as her fist flies past him; clucks approvingly as she catches herself and recentres, only to watch her killer one-two glance harmlessly off his shoulder.

He has some moves, for an old guy.

Someone, somewhere is laughing, because _of course_ Miles’ nemesis can fight, _of course_ he’s got other girls on his books, _of course_ he seems to be a better teacher than her uncle – god love him – ever was.   Because Murphy’s Law really should have been Matheson’s fucking law, because this guy, her uncle’s worst enemy, is a fighter’s dream.

And so beautiful her breath had caught in her throat when his gaze had caught hers, their eyes locking as her something deep in her belly had started a slow, sexy shimmy.

Thank God he’d spoilt it by proving to be every bit the asshole all the ugly rumours said he was. She didn’t care how fast he was, if he called her kid again, she’d knock his teeth down his throat.

Or find a way to show him …

Nope. Teeth. Throat, her inner badass insists. That’s all that was gonna happen. He’s your trainer, for fuck’s sake.   Your family hates him. How old was he, anyway, if he and Miles used to fight?

Young enough to fuck you all night, and old enough to know every trick in the book, her libido purrs. Charlie roars, infuriated, and throws a flurry of punches don’t exactly hit their mark, but come closer than anything before had. The last one, a vicious hook, connects with his ear with a crunch that leaves the man _laughing_.

“Good girl!” he sputters as he wipes away a spray of blood from a cut that’s appearing high on his cheek. “What the hell were you thinking about then? Whatever it was – use it! Shit that gets you worked up like that makes you stop thinking, and you are so much better when you don’t think. You know what to do - just flow with it. That shit will win us fights,” he crows, eyes bright with furious ambition.

He’s so beautiful it makes her cramp, and god, she’s fucked. So royally fucked, Charlie despairs as she slumps to down to the mat to catch her breath. She needs to get her ass in the ring pronto, and maybe even start winning some fights.

Because right now, she needs some goddamn evidence that this whole thing is worth it. That she is doing the right thing walking away on shaky legs to drown her lust in the gush of water from the bubbler.  That no sex in the world could possibly compete with the thrill of winning a championship match.

“Not going to be a problem,” she croaks, and looks away from where he’s pulling up the bottom of his t-shirt to swipe at his bloody face.

Professionalism, she tells herself. Respect.

Nothing to do with the fact that she doesn’t trust herself for even one more second if she has to look at just how ridiculously cut his abs are – and fuck, noooo. The only V she’s allowed to be thinking about right now is her own fucking victory, she berates herself.

Not tracing her tongue down those delicious lines, and pushing those disreputable old sweats clear of what lies beneath.

Not pushing him onto his back and pinning him arms overhead so she can drive him crazy with the drag of her nipples across his chest.

Not kicking off her shorts and underwear and slamming herself down to ride him like a mechanical bull.

“Victory,” she whimpers.


	2. Chapter 2

Charlie scrawls her mother’s family name on the form and tells herself she’s hardly the first fighter to use an alias. She’ll fight better without the Matheson name hanging around her neck – this gives her a clean slate for her first fight, just like everyone else.

If she’s ready to fight. A fresh surge of anger punches through her lingering guilt. Fuck Miles, and everyone else left in her life who calls themselves Matheson. She’s had to push so hard just to get this far, and to find it wasn’t worth a damn … she thought might actually have a chance in the ring. At least give someone a decent fight. Six days of training with Monroe and she’s wondering just how wrong she might have been.

He’d drilled her mercilessly, that first week, inspecting her foundations, demolishing her arrogance, exposing the raw bones of her technique.   She’d eaten mat so often she’d been forced to listen to him in a way she’d never listened to Miles, to think her way through every session, while training her body to react instinctively.

When he tells her to drop, she drops. If he demands she run 20 miles before breakfast, she runs it. If he told her to strip naked and dance …

Fuck. Not helping, Charlie scolds herself as her thoughts gallop down the familiar path. She’s hearing him at night in her dreams, and it’s not pushups he’s telling her to do. His silken rasp kills her, and coupled with that hot blue gaze … even now, her heart is hammering as he waits impatiently for the form, and when their fingers brush as she hands it to him, the bolt of heat settles low in her belly.

“On the scales.”

He takes off weight after weight as he attempts to make the old-fashioned scale balance, and she’s grinning at his exasperation by the time it settles into something resembling her weight. “Told ya. 126 pounds,” she says, wrinkling her nose at him. When his eyes rake over her in response, she has to remind herself that he’s analysing her weaknesses. Weighing her potential.

Deciding her very future.

“You’re gonna need to build some muscle,” he grunts eventually. “Don’t wanna be right at the bottom of your weight class.”

“But you’ll let me fight?”

“No fucking promises. You’re gonna have to work your ass off. Literally, if you want to fight flyweight,” he says, and Charlie’s heart threatens to stop when he licks his lips as his eyes drop to her admittedly generous curves. He mutters something under his breath, and maybe it’s “damn shame,” or maybe it’s not, but Charlie simply can’t think about that now because this is _important_ and she _can’t_ be distracted and _please_ God she just needs to get through this without embarrassing herself and then she can hit the showers.

(Because, yeah. That’ll be the look getting her off tonight. That, or the thought of them on the desk.)

Monroe coughs to drag her attention back to their discussion, and she fucking _refuses_ to blush. Hit ‘em hard and hit ‘em twice, like Miles always says.

“I can do that, four weeks to lose a few pounds is easy. So if I do that, you’ll sign off the entry?” she demands, refusing to let him step sideways from the decision.

He snorts, unimpressed. “You’ll be doing a hell of a lot more than that if you want to get in that ring. You’re unfit, too dependent on your fists and have no idea how to kick. Let’s not even mention your takedown. And that’s the good news.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“You could’a been here, training with me, while you were wasting your money on Matheson. Might have been winning fights by now.”

“So I don’t totally suck?”

He makes her wait a long minute before his lips twitch upwards into a grudging smile.

“No. You don’t suck,” he says. “There’s a lot of fight in you. And good instincts. Put the work in, and you’ll get the wins eventually, kid.”

Charlie is singing inside, but she snarls instead. “Don’t call me kid!”

He’s been lobbing her attitude right back at her all week, but there’s no stink eye or whiplash tongue this time. Instead, he takes a long breath and rubs at his jaw as if she’s just socked him one. When his eyes meet hers again, the appeal in them makes her heart stutter.

“Call it self-preservation, okay? Trust me. It’s better for both of us if I do,” he admits.

She hadn’t missed the way he’d looked her over that the first day, or how his eyes skitter away from her whenever they linger a bit too long. She had suspected the attraction wasn’t exactly one way, but hadn’t realized he was struggling with it just as much as she was.

Charlie nods her head, unwilling to trust herself not to voice the strange mixture of guilt and giddy delight. She does it too, calls him ‘Monroe’ or ‘coach’ to remind herself who he was and why she was here.  He’d never once questioned it, even though everyone in the place calls him Bass.

She hadn’t given him enough credit, she realises now. He takes it seriously. He takes _her_ seriously. And it raises the stakes a lot.

But fuck if it doesn’t make this strange, potent thing brewing between them that much harder to take.

*

The water is warm as it sloshes down over her shoulders, kneading the sore muscles with a force it wouldn’t have if the gym hadn’t been completely empty. Tuesday was the day Monroe closed early; he’d chosen to make her longest session on a Tuesday evening because he didn’t enjoy snarling at the onlookers. It meant he was the only fighter available for her to spar with, and since he was the only one in the gym who didn’t pull his punches, she got twice the workout she would have otherwise.

Three Tuesdays in, and she can’t figure out if she loves or hates Tuesdays.

On the one hand, every muscle in her body is screaming. She can almost see their pain, Charlie grimaces, running a wondering hand down over the abdominal muscles that she’s developed in just a three weeks of working with Monroe. Or maybe they’d already been there, just hiding under the layer of body fat she has shed on his all-protein, run-a-ridiculous-number-of-kilometres regime.

On the other … she’s alone, under the delicious pressure of a steaming hot shower, after a four hour session with Monroe. Four hours of his hooded eyes on her body. Four hours of being slammed into the mat, writhing under his weight, anointed by his sweat. Four hours of drowning in the rich stink of him, and feeling herself drip with need.

And not a soul to hear her cry out, she moans at the ceiling as she settles to the floor and spreads her knees. She thinks it was genuine, tonight. She’d taken him down before, but it had all been a part of a choreographed dance – foot here, weight there, drop, drop, drop! But tonight … she’d seen the opening and had thrown herself forward before he’d had a chance to brace. Flipped him, and pinned him, knee at his throat.

“Good. Great!” he’d rasped, and she wondered if she’d actually hurt him, at first.

Then she shifts her leg higher and – fuck. He’s hard as rock, poking into her thigh. All it would take …

“Let me up, Charlie.”

She springs off him like a thing electrified, because they’ve been good, they’ve been so good, and her first fight is less than a week away. It’s just the start, he’d said yesterday. The way she’s going, he can take her right to the state championships. Nationals, even. “Vegas, baby,” he’d told her with that supernova grin.

And sure it’s getting harder, and they both know it, so they’re careful. So careful. And sometimes … there’s only one thing for it.

“Bass,” she moans, fingers working furiously, penetrating herself as deeply as she can while the palm of her hand grinds down onto her clit. “Oh fuck, please, Bass. Please.”

Even her vibrator can’t deliver the orgasms her imagination can after four ridiculously charged hours with him. Even the shower isn’t enough to drown out her cries. And one orgasm is simply not enough to banish the ache.

It’s not until her heart rate starts to flatten out again that her ears pick up the faint sounds. Harsh breathing on the other side of the divider. Silenced moans, ragged pleas swallowed by a guilty mouth.

She knows immediately it is him. Quite apart from the fact that they’re probably alone in the building, she recognises the rough rasp of his breathing, the growl that rips from his throat. It’s the sound of a man clinging to the last vestiges of control.

Her arousal returns tenfold as she backs out of the still running shower, and rounds the dividing wall. She moans as she drinks in the sight of him, head thrown back, eyes closed as he works himself slowly.  

Monroe startles at the noise, his eyelids swooping up to blast her with pure blue flame. He looks tormented as he takes her in, lips parted, eyes slumbrous, a glistening flash of blood-flushed pussy, still glossy with her juices. “Charlie,” he croaks, and it’s a warning. A plea.

She can’t leave, though. Her feet won’t let her. She drops down onto the bench opposite him, gripping the wood tight in her determination to stay there. She won’t touch him, her eyes promise. She won’t. She just needs … desperately wants … can’t breathe until …

“Show me.”

He interrupts her breathless perusal of his cock – he’s huge all over, some shameless part of her delights - to grate out the order. Her entire body jumps with the need to obey, but she’s not sure what he wants.

“Let me see you,” he rasps, then lets his eyes drift down to where she’s pushing her thighs together to assuage this new, desperate ache.   “This time I want to watch.”

He’s your _trainer_ , Charlie reminds herself. Your uncle’s enemy. Almost your friend, now.

None of the reasons are enough.

She spreads her legs and braces her back against the wall. Starts slow, unsure if she’ll be able to come again after the series of orgasms that had wracked her body just minutes ago.

“So pretty, baby,” he croons, and his fist works faster. “I’m close. Listening to you, then seeing you – gonna come like a freight train. Make it fast.”

She wants to, oh how she wants to, but it’s too soon, and she doesn’t know how she can …

“Give yourself a slap or two. Real sharp. Show that sweet cunt of yours who’s boss,” he pants.

They come together, her astonished shout tangling with his guttural cries in the foggy confines of the shower room.  Charlie wants nothing more than to crawl across the space between them to nestle into his body; instead, she forces herself up onto unsteady legs and flees back into the shower.

He’s gone when she finally emerges, just a shadow in the office overhead, staring down at her through the slatted blinds.

“Night, coach,” she yells, and that’s how they’ll do this, she resolves. Focus on the goal. Keep things professional. This can’t happen, so it never did.

Liar, her body yells, and fool, her libido moans. That’s not what worries her, though. It’s the strange glow in her chest, as if something warm and foreign is lodged there.

Not happening, Charlie insists, frantic. She doesn’t _do_ feelings. She’s not that kind of girl. She’s a fighter, dammit! A creature of adrenaline and spite.  Ready to bottle all her shit up and throw it at the unfortunate soul who has to take her on this Friday night.

She’s a fighter, and he’s her trainer, and that’s all she needs him to be.

(What she wants doesn’t come into it.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this? Really earns that 'explicit' tag. This is your last warning for vague plottiness and detailed sex ahead.

Her opponent is a Latina woman a handful of years older than she is. Monroe had warned her Guzman was tough, but she’d taken the “don’t get hit” part as a joke. Her mistake.

“She was a boxer before she switched to MMA,” he explains as he dabs at the cut above her eye. “Hell of a punch. But you’re quicker on your feet, and even though you’re probably not as strong – I’ve taught you to kick. You want to win this? Take her down fast, and keep her there.”

Course it’s the fucking takedown, Charlie fumes as she stares across the ring to meet the other woman’s impressive scowl.   She’s at her best as a striker, kicks and punches, but the only way to outfight someone just as good as you? Get ‘em on the ground.

 _Hajime_ , she thinks. Begin.

Monroe had brought in a tiny Japanese man who had flung her to the mat with an ease that left her senseless. He’d bowed, afterwards, and demonstrated the throw. They called judo “the gentle way”, Satori had explained. The aim was to incapacitate, not wound.

“Yeah, that’s my territory,” Monroe had interrupted. “We’re on the clock here, dude. Can we stow the philosophy for now and concentrate on the throws? A couple of good takedowns. That’s all she needs.”

Satori had scowled his displeasure and spent the next hour explaining the tao of judo. When Monroe finally stomped out in disgust, his face had split into a huge smile before he’d turned to her with a raised eyebrow and ordered her to rush him. Weight balance, he explains. Momentum. Let physics do the work for you.

“You better not be a scientist like my Mom,” Charlie had fired back, but managed to replicate the move. This, it turned out, was a physics she could understand. She had mastered the basic throws before they had finished that day, and by the end of the week had added two good takedowns to her bag of tricks.

Question was, would they work on Guzman?

Charlie springs out of her corner at the referee’s nod, and they prowl around each other like wary cats. There’s a bruise starting to darken over Guzman’s cheekbone, which flushes Charlie with pride, because let’s be honest. She’d been lucky to land that kick. The few inches of height the other woman has on her would have meant Charlie was totally fucked if Guzman knew how to –

The foot slams into her shoulder with a force that throws Charlie back onto the edge of the cage, her feet leaving the ground completely as the net comes rushing up to meet her. Guzman doesn’t give her a second to recover, already pushing her to the ground, one leg wrapping around her hip while the other hooks underneath to trap her.

“Roll with your opponent,” Satori’s voice echoes in her head. “Use them to win the fight.”

Guzman is heavier than she is, her shoulders and arms thick with muscle, the top of the weight bracket where Charlie sits at the bottom.   Momentum, if she can only …

Charlie wraps her arm around Guzman’s ankle, and buries her head in the other woman’s midriff. A single tug and they’re falling backwards, Charlie spreading her knees to ensure she ends up straddling the other woman, high on her chest. It’s a two-second scramble once they hit the mat, Guzman folding herself in two in a bid to bring her powerful legs into play. Charlie barely notices as she struggles to immobilise the killer hook that’s nearly taken her out twice now.

Somewhere, someone is counting, and all Charlie can think is she doesn’t want her first fight to end this way. She wants, she wants …

Guzman heaves upwards, throwing them both backwards and leaving Charlie floundering once more, clinging to the other woman like a lover as she propels them backwards. She snorts at the thought, then can’t help the giggles that descend on her at Guzman’s surprised look.

It’s a tactical error, apparently, because she sees the other woman shake her head, but not the fist that comes flying up afterwards, crunching her chin upwards and propelling her backwards onto the mat. She doesn’t see anything, except a tunnel rushing her into the dark, the quiet …

“Charlie. Charlie!” Gentle hands on her face, blue eyes staring down at hers, frantic with worry. Huh. He’s so pretty. “Are you okay? Can you get up?”

Fuck. That’s right. Big punch. She remembers now.

“Shit.”

He heaves in a shuddering breath and forces himself back into trainer mode. “Not really. She’s the better fighter, you lasted four rounds before a TKO. Can’t argue with that.”

Huh. No, she can’t.

She fought. No wins yet, but she fought.

Charlie tries to smile, but the aching mass of flesh that is her face won’t let her. “You good?”

“Yeah. Let’s do this thing.”

He grins wide enough for the both of them, then signals the referee she’s ready to officially submit. Charlie sways a little as she shuffles forward to touch gloves with Guzman, and is surprised by the wide smile she gets.

“Nice takedown. Not bad for your first,” her opponent grins, and Charlie winces as she tries not to smile back.

“Thanks. Sorry about the giggling,” she mumbles.

“Had to be there, hey chica?”

“Something like that,” she says, and smiles anyway, suddenly jubilant. She’s done it. This is her victory, no matter who won the bout. Just being here. Not to spite Miles, or piss off her Mom, or show Monroe she can do it – for her. This is who she is.

She’s never felt better in her life.

*

Her pupils are blown like saucers, Bass notes, and it could be just the adrenaline. She’d only been out for a second, and she hadn’t taken any major blows to the head, so a concussion is unlikely. Still … he needs to keep an eye on her. Keep her close until he can be sure.

Yeah, real close, his conscience jeers.   He bridles a bit, reminds himself it’s his fucking job to make sure his fighter doesn’t need medical attention after a bout. And the little voice that’s taunting him about the way he watches her, dreams about her, leans closer than he needs to just to get a whiff of her hair … it can go straight to hell.

She’d stepped into that ring and owned it, tonight. The Latina girl was stronger, better, but for how long? Give her a year and this kid could be unstoppable.

He’s not going to throw that away just because he wants to fuck her.

Or coddle her, he allows as he helps her out of the octagon. He’d seen that smile as she traded quips with Guzman, pride and satisfaction and pure fighting spirit written in every line of her body. Whoever she was, she was born to fucking do this, and they both knew it.

All he has to do is get her fit, teach her a bit more technique, and keep his fingers out of the honeypot.

 _Pink glory, spread wide for him, glistening and juicy_ … the memory slays him, his hand tightening unconsciously around her bicep as they move through the crowd. He can barely focus with the sensual onslaught, the noise around them fading to his own harsh breathing, and the feel of the girl next to him. He loosens his fingers, strokes her bare arm in apology, then has to grit his teeth as she shivers, and inches closer.

They fall through the door into her dressing room together, and all the reasons why they shouldn’t do this, why they can’t do this are still fresh on his tongue when she whirls around and slams him back against the door.

“Tell me to stop,” she says, and he wants to tell her about the titles they could take together. The fights just waiting for her to win. How he’s just a broken down old fighter and she’s this wondrous, bright creature on the brink of greatness, but he’s weak. He’s _always_ been weak, but God knows, his many sins, his talent for temptation, all the flavours of stupid, they’re nothing, next to this.

Her eyes, trapping him fast. Her hips, angling into his. Her arms, reaching up to tug at his curls, pulling his face down so the sweetness of her breath can seduce him into tipping his head further, just to catch a taste.

They gasp in concert as their lips touch for the first time, bodies already scrambling to press closer. The kiss is innocent for mere seconds before she attacks him, pushing up onto her toes to lick her way into his mouth, biting at his lips, tongue thrusting and seeking and demanding his submission.

He wraps his arms around her with a groan, lifting her up his body to bring their pelvises together, her heat scorching him even through their layers of lycra and thick sweats. His soul is naked, he panics, because he’s never wanted anyone like this before, never even knew it was possible to want like this.

“Need you, Bass. _Please_ ,” she says lowly, but she’s so fierce there is nothing of a plea about it. The trainer in him knows she’s high on the fight and the world exists to do her will, and he’s seen it all before, felt it himself, so it shouldn’t excite him as much as it does. But the man – the man wants to tongue every inch of her elegant feet, kiss his way up the length of her legs, glory in being the instrument of her pleasure as she fucks his adoring, unworthy mouth.

Bass darts desperate eyes to every corner of the room, but they’ve clearly been assigned a storeroom masquerading as a dressing room.   The cold concrete floor is cluttered with rank, wobbly piles of mouldering boxes, and there isn’t even a desk in the place. Just a single, straightbacked chair sitting incongruously against the far wall.

They spot it at the same time, Charlie crowing with delight as he hikes her higher on his hips to stumble across the room. It’s barely half a dozen steps, but his hands are busy tugging at the long zipper in the back of her fight suit, and by the time his ass hits the seat, she’s stepping out of it and pulling her constricting sports bra overhead. He’s immediately distracted by the bounce and sway of her delicious little tits, leaning forward to capture one impertinent nipple in his mouth while his fingers latch around the other.

“Oh, _fuck_. How is that getting you inside me? God yeah, just like that, ” Charlie curses, tugging ineffectually at his sweatpants as she writhes under his attentions. “I need, I need …”

“Anything you want, sweetheart. Anything - I’ll give it to you,” he pants, hooking his thumbs inside his trunks and sweats alike to push them down unceremoniously. His cock jumps free, already aching, and Charlie makes a hungry noise in the back of her throat that makes him throb. “Is this what you want? My cock?”

She growls her assent, straddling him to kneel up for a long, biting kiss, then lowering herself slowly onto his cock. They stare into each other’s eyes, foreheads pressed together in communion, as her body claims him in a silken stranglehold he never wants to escape.

“Jesus, Charlie. So good, sweetheart. So, so good,” he moans, and kneads her ass to stop himself from bucking up. She’ll fuck him when he’s good and ready, his frantic brain offers. Yeah, he thinks gratefully, while another part of him is staring, agog, wanting to know when the hell he traded in his manhood for whatever the fuck this is.

Never met a woman like this, he protests as he closes his eyes, clinging to sanity. There will never be another woman like this, he thinks, and he has to be delirious because he’s been running from that his whole life and she’s doesn’t even know she’s caught him, and she can’t know, ‘cause she’s just a kid, no matter what he tells himself and it wouldn’t be right and he’s fucked if he’s going to hurt her, not this one. He’s just plain fucked because he’s never cared enough to stay away from a woman before, and it just might kill him.

But son of a bitch, if he’s gonna go …

He’ll happily die this way, Bass thinks as Charlie starts to circle her hips.

*

He’s a burning brand inside of her, splitting her apart with an agony that feels so good she just has to make it hurt a little bit more.

Charlie had always suspected Bass was big, but the reality of him was beyond anything she’d ever seen. She’d nearly gotten off on the first press of his cockhead alone, his helmet so sharply cut she could feel her sex gasping around him, hungry to take him in, but straining none the less. Her swollen clit had throbbed so hard it hurt, but she’d ignored it. She wasn’t ready to come just yet.

He’s staring up at her with something raw in his eyes that makes her feel powerful. She hadn’t even won the fight, yet she feels like she could kill the fucking world.   Enjoy it, even. Instead, she’s gonna make this beautiful man beg for her. Scream her name.

Charlie rocks her hips one more time, forcing him deeper, then again, until she can feel him everywhere. She drops her head to sink her teeth into his shoulder as her body adjusts, and can feel him shake, each tiny shudder forcing him deeper. There’s only one thing left to do.

She lifts herself up a little, then slams down with a shout.

And again.

And again.

The howl of the crowd outside is getting intense as the second fight of the night is announced; they’d agreed to watch it, but here they are instead. Chasing a much sweeter oblivion.

“Charlie –“

He’s almost crying.   Bliss is already coiling at the base of her spine, so maybe it’s time to let him drive. Enjoy the ride.

“Do it. Like your life is depending on it, soldier. Fuck me up.”

Bass roars his agreement and grips her hips hard, slamming her down onto him with wall-shaking force. The chair groans underneath him as he thrusts up into her, begging her to rub her clit while he pistons in and out. She comes almost immediately, but it’s just a preview, a mere physical release to clear the decks for something more significant. She’s no longer too full, no longer stretched to her limit. She is endless. Infinite, she grins, high on sensation.

She’s keening into his mouth as the first orgasm tails off, circling her hips to grind every last shudder out of it. The second follows like a nuclear explosion, vibrating from her core to every extremity of her body, and frying her brain.

He’s mumbling praises and curses alike into her hair as she comes down, and all it takes is one, powerful clench to make him let go completely, a warm torrent deep inside of her that seems to go on forever. He better not have an STD, she thinks woozily, and thank God I’m on the pill. Neither thought is enough to make her move, though, because she might just want to stay in this chair, with this man, for the rest of her natural life.

They’re still like that when the door opens.

And Charlie looks over her shoulder to discover she has just two seconds to stop her Uncle Miles from killing Bass.


	4. Chapter 4

In hindsight, it wasn’t her brightest moment, trying to get between two legendary fighters. Miles had been undefeated as a boxer, his long arms giving him notorious reach, and Bass had moved to MMA because the rules of the boxing ring had frustrated his genius for the unorthodox. Neither, from what she could find out, had ever been able to defeat the other.

So when Miles bolts across the room, flings her away from Bass without even looking at her, and then wraps his hands around her lover’s throat, Charlie doesn’t stop to think. Her foot thuds into her uncle’s ribcage with all the power she can muster, and she’s pulling her arm back to strike when Bass flings them both around to block it.

“Stand down,” he commands, and Charlie blinks, more used to hearing the phrase from Miles. She’d been dragging her tongue across the eagle on his bicep just minutes ago, yet somehow she had forgotten he had been a Marine too. She’d wondered about the Bass said sometimes, how uncannily like Miles he could sound. And now, watching them grapple around the room, something else becomes obvious. They’re not just evenly matched.

This is a dance they’ve done before.

For every boneshaking punch that Miles tries to land, Bass has a manoeuvre to escape. Fists are caught and redirected; footwork is intercepted before either them can get a lock. They seem to know each other’s moves so well, that they counter them without even trying.

But that, right there, is the difference between them. Miles is enraged, but Bass is simply pissed off. He’s distracted, too, trying to figure out why the hell Miles is attacking him, Charlie realises with a stab of guilt. It turns to fury when Bass tries to fend Miles off one too many times and ends up pinned against the wall, Miles’ forearm crushing his windpipe.

She seizes the chair by the seatback and swings it hard, wincing as the wooden legs snap to kindling against her uncle’s back.

Her uncle roars like a wounded animal and reacts without thinking, one long arm sweeping around to fell her like a tree. It’s not until she crumbles to the floor, unable to breathe, that they both snap to their senses and almost bang heads as they drop to their knees beside her.

“Charlie! Don’t panic baby, you’re just winded. Breath through your nose and let come …” Bass says frantically, hands running over her shoulders as Miles stares, mouth working as if trying to speak. 

“Jesus, kid. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean …” he breaks off, eyes suddenly wide as if noticing her nakedness for the first time. “Take your fucking hands off her, Bass!” 

Monroe snorts his disgust and lifts his head to retaliate. “I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing here, but Charlie is my fighter now, and it’s none of your fucking business where I have my hands,” he growls. “Get out, Miles.”

Her uncle’s lip curls, and that blank, calculated glare - now, Charlie tells herself, would be a good time to pass out. She’s not ready for this. Miles is about to blow a gasket.

“Not my business? Are you freaking kidding me? Someone tells me a girl that looks just like my niece is fighting tonight, so I come here to see what the fuck that’s about, and there you are, hurrying her out of the ring, hands all over her,” he spits, vicious as a cobra.

Charlie closes her eyes as Bass’ mouth falls open.

“Not only do I find out you are training her – bet you just _loved_ that – but you’re fucking her, too? The rules just don’t apply to you, do they prick? Fucking your fighters? Sure! But your best friend’s d- niece? Who does that? Knocking up my fiancé wasn’t enough for you, so now you start on my family?”

Bass looks from Miles to Charlie, and back to Miles, as if unable to make sense of the torrent of words. “Niece?” he croaks, then looks back at her as if seeking confirmation. She raises a hand to his cheek, beseeching, but he flinches. “You’re his _niece_?”

Charlie nods slowly. She wants to say something, but her dazed mind is too full of _you should have told him. Now you’re gonna lose him. You should have told him._

“Oh, shit. Rachel’s kid. Charlotte _Matheson_. Oh fuck. Of course you are.” He reels backwards, crouching against the far wall with his head in his hands.

The guilt on his face twists up her insides, but it’s her uncle’s shocked curse that makes Charlie realise something.   There’s a lot more going on here than she knows.

 The memory drifts back then. _Your best friend’s niece! Knocking up my fiancé_ …

 The pain in Miles’ voice.

 The guilt on Bass’ face.

 She thought she knew what she was getting into, coming to Monroe, but she’s beginning to suspect she had no fucking idea. She feels stupid, and she’s too much of a Matheson to handle it well.

Charlie wriggles back into her fight suit then digs frantically in her duffle bag for sweats to pull over the top before letting Miles pull her out of the little room. She looks back as she’s closing the door, just as he lifts his head. Charlie’s heart stops as their gazes clash and cling, the air between them charged with longing, an electric pull threatening to drag her back inside. She’s ready to slam the door on Miles and everything he represents, and just … go to him. Then Bass shakes his head. It’s over, she takes that to mean. Don’t come back.

Nothing should hurt like that.

Charlie doesn’t say a word on the drive home, and it’s so uncharacteristic Miles watches her out of the corner of his eye, obviously worried. But her mouth won’t work. Her limbs are frozen. She didn’t stretch properly after the fight, she remembers. Not the way she was supposed to, anyway.

And the dull pain in the vicinity of her heart? Just another rival for all the sharper hurts, the split lip and mangled cheekbone and that huge red mark underneath her collarbone that’s already starting to brown like a rotting apple. Whatever, Charlie shrugs. She’s used to putting up with pain. Push through it. Focus on something else. 

But what? Broken heart aside, the question remains - who the fuck is going to train her now?

*

Not Miles, she vows. _Never_ Miles.

The temptation to sink into the couch and stay there is overwhelming. She does, for a few days, but then her fear of succumbing to the lassitude drives her out to pound the pavement – five miles, ten miles, more. On the day she returns home shattered after pushing it to 20 miles, Miles bails her up in the hallway.

“You’re going to fucking kill yourself!” 

She thinks of all the snappy comebacks she could make – ‘at least I’ll be fit enough to fight,’ maybe, or the teenage classic, ‘serves you right’. Wishes she could summon the energy, but just tries to push past him. He stops her with a hand of her arm, his hold so gentle she wants to slap him.

“Seriously, Charlie. You need to ease up.”

He probably has a point. She’s pretty sure she’s dropped five pounds in the fortnight since she saw Bass last, but she doesn’t any reason left to be happy about it. What good is dropping a weight division if she doesn’t have a trainer to sign off her fights?

And she knows she’s lying to herself about that being the problem here. She can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t focus for remembering the look on his face as he discovered exactly who she was. First, betrayal, then that awful guilt. What the fuck is she doing beating herself up over someone who looked sick at the thought of touching her?

Running herself into the ground, that’s what.

“Just trying to stay in shape, that’s all,” she mumbles, and doesn’t miss the way he winces. She’d been brutal, when she’d finally been ready to talk. She’d thrown the truth at him, then some – she wanted to fight. She had always wanted to fight, and he had known that and hadn’t bothered to tell her he was just indulging her. Wasn’t actually training her. “Unless you’re a really lousy trainer, that is,” she had attacked, and Miles had shifted on his feet, the barb hitting home.

“Your mother said you’d get sick of it. Only needed to know enough to keep you safe,” he tried to explain. “She hates the fights.”

“What about what _I_ thought, Miles? What about what _I_ needed?” she had yelled, and he’d dropped his gaze, jaw clenching as he resisted the urge to bite back. Good. She wasn’t done. “You used to care about that once – before you hooked up with mom, that is. Now you just regurgitate whatever shit she’s feeding you,” Charlie snarled, and even as his eyes chilled to jet black fury, managed to hold her ground. She wasn't sorry. It was true.

“So you and Bass did do more than just fight and fuck,” Miles sneered. “I’ve heard all his bullshit before – don’t need it from you as well.”

“His bullshit? Come on Miles. I think you need to take a long, hard look at yourself. Bass didn’t know who I was, remember? He never said a damn thing about Rachel to me. Besides--” she had stepped closer, knowing exactly how best to rile her overprotective uncle – “I was too busy sucking his cock to listen much.”

You wish, something inside sighed. Yes, Charlie had agreed with herself. I certainly do.  But what Miles doesn’t know is a perfectly good stick to beat him with.

It backfired, though.

She is raiding the fridge after a mammoth Netflix session a few nights later when Miles wanders into the kitchen, blinking blearily in the low light.

“Water,” is all he says before shuffling to the filter and pouring himself a glass.

Charlie is silent as she makes herself a sandwich, but she can feel his eyes on her, considering.

 “I’m sorry,” he says eventually, soft words barely breaking the pool of near darkness.

 “For?”

 “Everything, I guess. Not training you properly. Not letting you fight.” He winces, and lowers his voice. “Letting your mom tell me what to do.”

 There’s a smile threatening to take over her face, but Charlie refuses to let it free. Then he surprises her.

 “And you and Bass. You seemed kinda – you’ve been so sad, Charlie. I don’t want you to think …”

 “What?”

 “Our bullshit is our bullshit. You should go and see him.”

 “You think I should ask him to train me again?”

 “No! Well – yeah, I guess. If that’s what you want. Though the trainer-fighter thing, that’s not a good idea. It can go badly wrong.” Miles studies her with wary eyes, obviously less than comfortable with what he’s about to say. “Guess you have to decide what’s more important.”

 Her throat closes down for a moment, her entire body fighting the truth.  She knows the answer.  She just hadn’t been willing to admit it, not when it felt so much like defeat.

 “Will you train me, Uncle Miles? Properly, this time?”

 His quiet groan fills the room, but he’s almost smiling as he nods his assent. “But you’re the one telling your mother.”

 “Bass is right. You are _so_ her bitch.”

 He makes her do 100 pressups, right there on the kitchen floor, counting them off as he grumbles about respect. By the time she collapses into bed, Charlie’s muscles are burning pleasantly, and there’s only one thing left to do.

Bass' face fills her mind as she fucks herself with a sadly-lacking dildo, her imagination doing most of the work as she runs through all her favourite scenarios. Going down on him in the showers, desecrating every surface in his office, fucking in the back seat of his big, black car, that shiny monstrosity she’s only seen from a distance. Celebrating after a title fight she hasn’t won yet. Kissing him slowly. Saying hello again. Forgive me.

 And for the first time in weeks, she actually sleeps.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes, this was going to be the last chapter. But after the smut must come the angst. It's the law. The NEXT chapter will definitely be the last. Promise!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This has a mention of past Bachel interaction. Just a couple of sentences, and it ended badly, but some of you might like to skip over that bit.

 

 _Matheson_. _Matheson_. _Matheson_. The bag groans with every punch, threatens to spill its guts all his garage floor, but no matter how hard he hits, it doesn’t help the knot in his chest. Every lie he’s had to tell to get through this seems to be lodged there, suffocating him.

Neville had come looking for her on day three, wondering where “the sweet little piece of ass” was. It had been years – maybe even decades – since he had attacked anyone unprovoked, but that doesn't stop him knocking the poor kid to the deck and nearly crushing his wrist underfoot before something like rationality returned. Even then, he had snarled like a polecat, ugly and jealous and hurt and mad.

“She’s a goddamn fighter,” he’d told the kid, barely managing to swallow the “and not for the likes of you” that had burned on his tongue. Then he’d repeated it to himself for the rest of the day, hoping it would stop hurting sooner or later. _Just a fighter._ Rocks in her head and murder in her heart, just like the rest.

Neville hadn’t believed him either.

Then the fucking UFC had called.   He’d nearly hung up on them at first – he wasn’t interested in getting back in the ring on a professional basis – but then the idiot had started talking about a new women’s league.

“Lots of money in hot chicks beating on each other,” the promoter had chuckled, “and Hector Soto says your new girl is a freaky little blonde who looked real good opposite Guzman. What’s her name? Porter?”

He’d barely been able to grunt as the rage swirled up, a chaotic mix directed at them and her and himself in equal measures. “Not sure what’s happening there,” he’d barked. “Hasn’t been in the gym lately.”

And she’s a fucking Matheson, he wants to howl.

He doesn’t, because she’s registered as Charlie Porter, and some part of him knows there could be a reason for that. Miles Matheson threw a long shadow, and hell, he’d done more than change his name out of pure spite.

(Yeah, like almost fucking a woman you hated, just to get back at your best friend.)

Her mother, he realises with a lurch of his stomach that nearly dislodges his breakfast. He stumbles to the bag, throws his arms around it and lets it hold him up as his heart bleeds at the fucked up set of circumstances. He can’t even go work out at his own fucking gym, because its Tuesday, and she’s not there. “You sad loser,” he imagines Miles grinning, and isn’t that just the measure of how fucked up he is, that it’s still Miles Matheson’s voice he hears inside his head after all these years?

Used to be, he and Miles could laugh at the shit he got himself into, and Emma would slap them both upside the head and collapse down onto the couch between them, familiar and safe, their third wheel. She’d have her feet in his lap nudging at his cock as she kissed Miles real slow, and he didn’t think his brother would mind, really didn’t, but how fucking stupid was he to think he could get away with fucking his brother’s girl, and not have it fuck up his life.

He’d almost forgotten it happened, put it down to the dangerous combination of togetherness and too many drugs, and followed Miles to Kuwait and Fallujah and Kandahar before karma came to kick his teeth in. It had been Miles who kept him upright as he buried his parents and sisters, and Miles who took away the gun later that night.

And Miles who had headed over to Emma’s house as Bass tried to sleep off his grief. Maybe they’d hatched their fucking plot that night. Maybe they’d done it out some bullshit motivation like love.

Or maybe Miles had hated him for longer than he realised.

All he knows is that a decade later he gets a letter telling him Emma’s dead, and his son is graduating elementary school in a week. Connor, his name is. Connor Bennett.  He’d turned up to watch the ceremony, trying to figure out how the hell to introduce himself to his kid, only to watch the boy strut back to his seat to exchange high fives with Miles fucking Matheson.

His best friend had stolen his son, and the black beast of vengeance had swallowed Bass whole, sleepwalking him to his car, and back to Chicago, and Rachel.

The affair had been going on five years by then. He’d never been able to figure out what Miles actually liked about the frosty blonde, and sometimes he hated them both for what they were doing to poor, clueless Ben. It made it too easy.

Bass retches suddenly as he realises Charlie had probably been upstairs sleeping.   Rachel had opened the door, looked about for Miles and then shrugged, leading him into the kitchen. Ben was working late, she’d rolled her eyes when he asked. But what was he doing here?

“Visiting you,” he’d said, backing her up against the kitchen counter to loom over her. “Miles likes me to take care of his girls.”

He’d kissed her then, ignoring the little voice in his head yelling at him to stop. She’d been the one to untie her wrap and drag his hands onto her body, and who’d suggested they take things to the bedroom. It was only when his cock refused to cooperate that he came to his senses, calling her a vicious slut and telling her to leave Miles alone. “Or he’ll hear about this.”

“He’ll never believe you,” Rachel had sneered, and she’d been right. Miles had chosen to believe his lover over his best friend, but then – Bass had slept with Emma. And had every intention of fucking Rachel. So maybe he is the cocksucking manwhore Miles accused him of being.

(Sometimes he wishes he was. Goddamn heterosexuality.)

He reminds himself that Miles had called him a lot of things in the 15 years they’d been enemies rather than friends.   It was the name of the game – make the other guy so mad he couldn’t see, then make him bleed – but none had hurt as much as that first time, tearing each other to pieces as they flung truths back and forth about Emma, and Rachel, and the betrayals they’d heaped on each other.

He didn’t think anything could ever hurt like that, but here he was.

_Matheson. Matheson. Matheson._

He’d been caught fucking his best friend’s niece. Who is probably his best friend’s daughter. And he doesn’t even have the decency to regret it.

Just wants her back. Wants her again.

Needs ….

More than this.

*

Bass hadn’t been into the gym today, Charlie discovers. Jason Neville is all hot eyes and what he probably thinks is charm, but he’s straightforward enough. Monroe had been like a bear with a sore head for weeks, and hey – how had her fight gone? He’d wanted to come but his Dad was in town for once, and he thought girls fighting was a joke, but he obviously hadn’t seen a girl like her kicking ass before, the kid rambles.

“Thanks,” Charlie smiles, and unclenches her fists. “Don’t suppose you know where he hangs out when he’s not at the gym? I owe him my first month’s fees, don’t like carrying the cash around.”

And fuck, she’s probably transparent as hell because her hair is down and she’s wearing a skirt and actual makeup. But the getup seems to have the convenient side-effect of making boys dumb, so that’s working in her favor.

“On a Tuesday night? There’s a place on Indiana Ave, just before you get into Washington Park. The Ringside Bar. We went there for his birthday a while back and the girl behind the bar seemed to know him pretty well,” Neville smirks. “Not sure you want to go lookin’ like that, though. Not by yourself anyway,” he hints.

“Why? Coz I might have to kick someone’s ass?” Charlie says flatly, and spins on her heel to leave. She sits in the cab of her Jeep waiting for the willpower to head home, or her pride to kick in. It doesn’t, so she starts the car and searches for the Ringside Bar on her phone.

She knows it’s a dive even before she pulls up – the location told her that – but the reality of the sagging neon and the hole-strewn parking lot is sobering. Then she shrugs and parks under the only functioning streetlight. It’s hardly the middle of the night, barely 10pm. People won’t even be drunk yet, and she’s just going to wander in, see if Bass is there, and probably leave straight away when he isn’t.

The music hits her like a wall the minute she steps out of the car, the throbbing, pounding bass line making its way right out into the parking lot. When she pushes open the door, it grabs her by the scruff of the neck and licks its way up her spine, leaving her wet.

Fuck. She must be the only millennial in existence who gets off on Led Zep. And it had to be Whole Lotta Love.

And that’s when she sees him in the cage.

 

*

Nora is blasting Whole Lotta Love, and he turns his head towards the bar to grin his approval only to feel his entire body clench in shock. She’s there, one hand on the bar, mouth open as she stares. Face painted, short skirt, hair curling loose around her hips in a thick mass of old gold.

She doesn’t look like a fighter, and it can’t be a coincidence she’s here. Snakes writhe in his gut, suspicion and guilt warring with the softer feelings, but his cock doesn’t give a damn. It’s already saluting – damn inconvenient in the middle of a fight.

Bass dodges the fist that comes flying towards him and absentmindedly brings his knee up to smash the other fighter under the chin.   Usually he’d play with the guy a little more, entertain the crowd, but right now, he needs this fight to be done. He moves back, calculating just how high he needs to jump before springboarding himself into the air, gravity and pure aggression fuelling a hit that takes the meathead out in one blow.

He waits only as long as the ref needs to count him out, and is already half way down the steps before they finish announcing his third victory of the night.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Watching you fight, apparently. Can you teach me that move?”

Bass wants to laugh, and it makes him mean. “You don’t get to pretend you’re a fighter when you’re dressed like that. I can practically smell your pussy – like every other fight groupie in the place.”

He sees the stab of pain in her eyes before she can mask it, but her voice is cool when she responds. “Have you fucked them, too?”

“Not yet.”

She grabs blindly for the glass of whiskey Nora has put on the bar and throws it back in one long swallow, refusing to look at him. Then she’s weaving her way through the crowd, back towards the door.

Let her go, his conscience howls. But it’s too late for that, the dark thing curled in his chest hisses. She was the one who came looking, and he doesn’t give a fuck if she doesn’t like what she found.

He catches her with a few long strides and grabs her from behind, holding her tight against the front of his body as he redirects them onto the dancefloor.

“Get your fucking hands off me,” she growls, and he would, he would, except she’s grinding back into him, the globes of her ass sliding against his already painful erection, hair flowing around them like a golden cage. He can feel her yearning sinking into his bones from just the heat of her skin, and the little skirt is riding dangerously high as she shimmies against him.

“Charlie,” he warns, and he wants to ask her if she really means it, if she’s sure she wants to leave, because her body is telling all sorts of lies if that’s really true, and he wouldn’t want to hold her against her will, he’d never do that, but he’s not sure he’s capable of letting her go again. But she reaches up to loop her arms around his neck, her back arching against his chest in delicious invitation, and all he manages is “Fuck. Charlie!”

Her eyes are closed, and it’s only a whisper, but he still catches it as Plant boils their blood with his hymn to uncontrollable lust. “Mmm. Please.”

Their stumble out into the parking lot is punctuated by kisses so desperate he just has to be thankful they managed to make it out club before they started tearing at each others clothes.

“The black GTO,” he grunts as he gives in to the urge to sink his teeth into the tempting area of sun-bronzed skin between her neck and shoulder.

His keys and wallet are still stashed behind the bar, so he has to fish underneath the wheel arch to find his spare, safe in its magnetic case. And while he’s down there, he needs to run his tongue over the curve of her ankle, and sink his teeth into the swell of her calf as she leans back against the car with a needy wail. It’s that sound, more than anything, that forces his hands up under her skirt, just to feel the heat of her, the desire.

But then he discovers she’s not wearing underwear, and his self-control disintegrates faster than a puff of smoke.

*

Somehow, she’d forgotten. Bass has that effect on her, obliterating all reason, making her shameless. And when his fingers grazed against her bare pussy, his huff of shock should have made her blush. Apologise or something. Instead she starts to babble.

“Oh God, yes. Please,” she moans. “Touch me, Bass. Fuck me with your fingers. Right here.”

She’s never felt so out of control in her life, desire stabbing at her like a thousand knives, the need to touch and taste and feel him inside of her making the entire world shrink to their little corner of the night. His long groan vibrates through her bones, and he’s filling the air with shocked exclamations as his long fingers slick themselves in her juices, and skate around the contours of her sex. They’re not where she needs them, though, not inside where it aches, and he’s doing it on purpose, the dick, making her writhe and fuck his hand and _beg_.

She’s riding his hand when he pulls back a little to spread the petals of her sex wide and spear his tongue deep into her channel. She nearly comes with a scream, but his evil chuckle tells her the torture isn’t over yet.

He plans to drive her out of her mind, right there, on his knees in a dirty lot outside a fight bar in the bad part of Chicago.

And as his tongue lashes at her clit while he seals his mouth over her to lick and suck, all she can think is _yes_.

*

He’s been imagining the taste of her since that the first day she walked into his gym, but nothing could have prepared him for this. Her juices stream down her bare thighs and he’s having a hard time staying on task because he wants to lick up every tangy drop. Her scent sinks into his every pore and he’s gorging himself, slurping and sucking and swallowing her down, and he doesn’t need to fuck her, just needs her to come and keep on coming until he drowns in her slippery-sweet heaven.

Her thighs tighten around his head and she’s keening his name, begging, so he lifts his mouth from her to glance up and see what she needs. He can barely make out the cornflower blue of her eyes in the half dark, just their wet glint, but her face is still the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, even if he has to imagine it. “What do you need?”

“Inside me please. I need you. Inside me,” she begs, and she’s scrabbling at the door handle, hands clumsy with need. He drops a final kiss on her dripping pussy, then straightens up to pull the door open and tumble her inside.   She crawls in on all fours and looks back over her shoulder with a plea that leaves him tearing at his zipper and stealing her juices to slick up his cock.

His head is already teasing at her folds when he remembers to ask if she’s sure, really sure. She answers him by rocking backwards to impale herself on his cock, ass undulating in a bid to take him as deep as possible. He lets go the leash and slams into her with a roar.

It’s a fight, in a way, he thinks as the very meaning of life threatens to spurt free from his cock. The power of his thrusts against the endless welcome of her body; the unexpected twist when she turns it back on him and fucks herself on his willing rod. The silent accord not to give up, not to give in, to make it last as long as they possibly can, and then, the takedown, her long, anguished wail as she clenches and shudders around him, his entire body tripping over into glory as he empties wave upon wave of frustrated desire straight to the mouth of her womb.

The biggest fight of his life. The one he wants for the rest of his life. And that’s it, the knockout, the punch that leaves him face down on the mat, gasping.

*

“You. Want you. For the rest of my life,” he howls into her hair, and she couldn’t have heard that. Surely didn’t. Couldn’t even want to, Charlie tells herself, stunned, as his body folds over hers.

She’s 21 years old. Not a homebody, not even a together kind of girl – all she’s ever wanted is to be is a fighter. That’s what she’d come to him for – nothing else, she represses frantically. All they are is sex and adrenaline, as heady as the impact of fists on flesh, and about as meaningful. It’s not real. It can’t be real, she panics.

For all his rock hard muscles and Greek God face, he’s her uncle’s age, more than twice hers. He might have even a wife out there, or kids. They’ve never really talked long enough for her to find out – too busy beating the shit out of each other, or fucking like animals.

He just ate her out in the middle of a car lot, for Chrissakes.

She should feel like a shameless slut, but the way he’s holding her, the kisses he’s dropping into her hair … she doesn’t. She feels safe, and home, and happy, and that’s what scares her most.

And that’s what has her pulling her skirt down over her ass, and tugging her tank down from where it’s been pushed up over her breasts, and stumbling out of the car to screech away in her Jeep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this was meant to be three chapters. Then 4. Then 5. Now 6. Don't hate me ... all I can say is the path of true love never ran smooth. I should be able to sort these idiots out in one more chapter but no promises.


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